


To Change the Cod's Head for the Salmon's Tail (Open Your Blue Eyes Remix)

by tawnyPort



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Domestic Violence, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Remix, nebulous oc is no longer nebulous, sorry i made your fluffy fic dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawnyPort/pseuds/tawnyPort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere along the line they both seem to forget that it's her name on the lease.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Change the Cod's Head for the Salmon's Tail (Open Your Blue Eyes Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiftymillionstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftymillionstars/gifts).
  * Inspired by [let's drive off into the sunset like in your stupid romance novels](https://archiveofourown.org/works/465651) by [fiftymillionstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftymillionstars/pseuds/fiftymillionstars). 



> Huge thanks to Roach and Laylah for running the challenge and for guidance along the way, to suchanadorer as ever for livereading, and of course to fiftymillionstars for such a great place to start from! This was so much fun!

_Come on, come on. You are pictures out of door,_  
 _Bells in your parlours; hellcats in your kitchens,_  
 _Saints in your injuries; devils being offended,_  
 _Players in your housewifery, and hussies in your beds._  
\--Iyagoh, II.i.112-115, _Trollthello_

 

Their first conversation starts with her chucking a beer bottle at him and telling him to get the fuck off her bike. It was love at first sight for him, this wild woman with her dark hair and blue eyes and habit of beating the crap out of the girl who she always seems to bring with her. She came alone tonight, though, and that's why he's perched on her motorcycle with his guitar on his back. The set tonight went great (even if she didn't look at him once) and he's still high from it.

“Aww, c'mon, kitten, that's no way to treat a guy. I'm just looking for a ride.”

She curls her lip. “A ride home?”

“In the morning, sure.” He grins at her, certain that this is the line that'll get her on the bike behind him.

Ending up on his ass when she tore out of the parking lot was not on his list of expectations but it's not like it's the first time. Cronus is no stranger to women who want to be chased and he can tell that this one for all her leather and denim is no different.

He buys her drinks every time she's in for a month just to prove he's committed and if it takes a couple extra drinks the night he finally gets her to take him home, well, she doesn't seem to be complaining. They leave the bar together, his hand in her back pocket, fishing her keys out.

“What do you think you're doing?” She grabs his wrist and twists until he drops the keys on the pavement with a dull clatter.

“Look, no offense but you are loaded. Don't get me wrong,” he continues, running his hand over her cheek, “it's a great look on you, brings out the hellcat, but you're in no shape to drive.”

“If you don't want to ride with me you can walk but I'll be damned if I'm riding bitch on my own bike.” She bends down to pick up her keys—god, he could bounce a pick off that ass—and he shrugs.

“Whatever, better this way anyway seeing as I got the guitar and all.” He settles in behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. He reaches up to cup one breast as the motor roars to life and gets an elbow to the ribs for his trouble.

Oh, she's a fighter. Just his type.

Not too long after that first night—she's hot as hell in bed and doesn't seem to mind his whiskey dick making the entire affair take longer than it normally would, this doesn't happen all the time, he swears—he shows up at her door with a duffel bag and his guitar case. It just makes more sense from a practical perspective, them living together. She saves on gas (he promises he's going to get a car as soon as the tips from the bar add up), they can split rent and utilities and, most importantly, he'll always know where she is and what she's up to. And who she's with. Cronus doesn't share this most important part with her but she's such a catch, she's got to know any guy with half a brain is going to be jealous.

Of course, as happens when two passionate and volatile individuals such as himself and Vriska are in close quarters, it doesn't take long for the fights to start. True to form, Vriska never does anything small and when she discovers he's blown this month's tips on a pair of leather boots she cuts them to ribbons while he's out and as soon as he's in the door she lunges at him, slapping at his face with the soles. All it takes it one solid backhand and she's sprawled across the kitchen floor, the remnants of the shoes dropped.

He earned those tips. She's not bringing in any money he can see from her Etsy shop or whatever it is she does, he just knows there are constantly small robot parts all over the kitchen table and they hurt like hell when he steps on them. He gets to decide what he does with the money he earns. That's going to be a new house rule and if she doesn't like it she knows where the door is.

Somewhere along the line they both seem to forget that it's her name on the lease.

Then he gets kicked out of the band. They want to go in a new direction and apparently that direction involves less of his strumming and song writing and more success or something. Well, fuck those guys. The bartender takes pity on him—he's always been a champ, Cronus tells him, or at least he thinks those are the words he forms—and pours him into a cab hours before he'd normally be heading home. Not being welcome to rehearse has that effect on his schedule.

Vriska's immediately suspicious when he comes in but Cronus is not having it right now. He tells her as much and it's game on.

“I think you're going to have it and like it. Look at you, you're a COMPLETE mess!”

He pushes past her, heading toward the bathroom. He just needs a little water on his face. “Leave me alone, Vriska, I've had a hell of a day.”

“You're not my father, Cronus, like hell I'm going to let you tell me what to do.”

“I'm not telling you what to do, I am advising you on the best way to keep the fucking peace.” He wipes the water off and turns to where she's standing, blocking the bathroom door. “I got fired today.”

He hopes for a splinter of sympathy but she's all obsidian and steel. “Small wonder! You're always going in late and you singlehandedly drink up the band's entire liquor allowance from the bar! I'm surprised it took them this long.”

Cronus steps up into her space until they're chest to chest and he's glaring down at her. She's so hot when she's worked up, maybe that'll be a way to defuse this. He lowers his face to kiss her and she turns it away, gagging dramatically.

“You smell like a bar rag, are you out of your mind?”

He doesn't remember shoving her, certainly didn't mean to push her hard enough to make her head smack against the wall of the hallway outside the bathroom. He does remember her charging in at him and sending him stumbling backwards until he trips and crashes into the bathtub, pulling the shower curtain rod and curtain down on top of himself. He fights his way out from under the slick vinyl and she's laughing.

“Oh my GOD, you are the most pathetic! It's you, Cronus!”

He stands up, his hands fists at his sides, and the way she pales and shrinks a little is the most gratifying thing he's seen all day. He bends back to pick up a piece of the broken curtain rod and steps out of the bathroom, backing her toward the bedroom.

“This is YOUR fucking fault, Vriska. You're like a vampire, sucking everything bright and creative out of me. My songs have been shit since we moved in together, my playing's getting worse because we can't afford any new strings because whatever irons you have in the fire, they're not making any fucking MONEY, and I know you never wanted me to have any success in the band anyway! So WHO'S PATHETIC NOW?”

She's bearing a couple of darkening welts on her forearms and the rod is bent in his hand. Vriska moves past him when he stops to look at it, to figure out how it got into his hand, and he doesn't recognize anything happening until he hears the door slam. He hurls the cheap metal at the door and collapses onto the bed.

The night passes in a haze of tears and vomiting, first from the alcohol and then from the realization that she's not back, still not back, why is she still not back?

Cronus is still curled in bed, his face buried in her pillow and a half-written song about the scorpion that got away in his head when he hears her motorcycle pull up outside their building. He lurches out of bed and trudges to the door, picking the evidence of their fight up and throwing it out of sight. The bathroom is still in a complete shambles but at least that small piece is hidden.

She comes in as confident as ever, head high, shoulders back, but her jeans are destroyed and he can see she's limping a little and, as she shrugs the jacket off, her forearms are covered in deep purple bruises. They lock eyes for a long moment when he finally looks up from them. He's not about to back down just because she pushed his buttons. She should've known better.

“So where the hell were you?” He stays in the kitchen, keeping as much distance between them as possible in the small apartment.

“Not here.” She crosses her arms, defiant from the first.

“Haha. Who were you with?” He leans back on the fridge, forcing himself into a posture of non-chalance he doesn't feel. His nerves are jangling. He just wants things to be like they were before but at the same time he can't lose his power in his. Vriska's a viper and if he shows her any weakness he's done for.

“Not you. You're not very good at this interrogation thing.”

“Yeah well I'm feeling a fit of inspiration coming on. What the fuck were you doing?”

She seems to think for a moment. “I'm not used to having to fight for my life in my own apartment so I was pretty stressed when I left. I drove out toward Flagstaff but I got tired. I stopped to look at the stars and when I woke up it was already light out so I came back.” She gets more tense and puffed up as she speaks like she's expecting him to challenge her on it.

“And that's how your pants got all shredded?”

“I fell running out of here, jackass. I don't know how much of last night you remember in your alcohol fueled tirade but I'm not ashamed to say I tripped over my own feet trying to get away from you.” Vriska's positively sneering now and as much as he wants to get that look off her face, he swallows it. She's not wrong. He screwed up.

“Honestly, I don't remember most of it. It's all a mess of mistakes and you not being here, which was the biggest mistake of all.” Her jaw drops and he pushes off the fridge, waving his hands. “On my part, my part. Making you leave was the biggest mistake. I'm wrecking it all over again.”

“If you think this is even close to what happened—”

“No, I'm not stupid, Vriska, I know. I just. I'm no good at this, you were right.” Cronus shrugs in a manner he hopes looks appropriate dejected and miserable and his girlfriend seems to take this as an acceptable answer. It's not admitting defeat or giving up power if it still gets him what he wants, right? “You been out in the desert all night, you must be starving. You wanna get cleaned up, doll, I'll make some lunch?”

“How am I supposed to get cleaned up? Not like you fixed the bathroom, right?” She rolls her eyes and drops her arms to her side, staring at him until she's satisfied with the meaning behind his lack of response. “God, Cronus.” She stalks out of the living room and slams the bedroom door behind her.

Well. At least she's back.

 

 

The next few weeks go much as life usually does in the Serket household. Vriska gets in a couple of scuffles and has the dubious pleasure of Terezi Pyrope verbally abusing her for it. The end result is a brief bout of fisticuffs between the two and a conciliatory ice cream outing afterwards. At least that's what she tells Cronus. He doesn't get whatever those two have going on and he kind of doesn't want to know.

One morning, however, he asks her about it over breakfast and apparently he asks just a little too hard. Maybe it was asking about where Pyrope works, maybe it was commenting on how expensive these little girls' nights are getting to be. He still hasn't found another gig and his solo stuff barely brings in enough to cover the gas they spend driving him between coffee shops. She informs him with unrestrained venom that if she's the only one making money then she's damn sure going to decide how she's spending it. Wasn't that his house rule?

The coffee cup smashes much more spectacularly than he expects it to. Cronus swipes at her across the table, one solid open handed slap, and she's on her feet and gone in under five minutes leaving him staring at the brown spatter on the linoleum.

He liked that cup, too.

This entire arrangement is getting stupid and the more she keeps leaving the worse it's going to get. He decides as he mops up the mess with his stinging hand that he's going to tell her as much when she comes back.

She does eventually return, this time with her jeans stained with grass and dirt. There's soil under her fingernails too. Cronus is sitting in the living room, guitar in his lap but made lazy by the heat. He doesn't even stand when she comes in.

“Guessing you didn't fall asleep watching the stars this time?”

“Nope!” She disappears into the bathroom and he looks down at his guitar. So much for that big talk.

 

 

 

The next few weeks follow the same pattern: Vriska doing whatever it is she does on the computer all day, Cronus trying like hell to get a new gig—he's not taking some burger flipping job unless she has to do the same thing, they came together as a meeting of independent free-spirited hearts and he's not going to change that just for her—and when he gets rejected again, he gets edgy. She pushes him and now the littlest thing will send him reeling even without the alcohol. He'd kill to get drunk but they can't even afford to keep booze in the apartment anymore. Instead he gets a high from swinging at her and, much to his surprise, from the sound of her leaving. It's just so much easier without her here. He can write in peace without her telling him constantly that he's got no future in music. He already owns his guitar, song writing doesn't cost anything, he could do just fine without her.

Due to his increasingly impoverished bank account he's wary of just breaking things off with her but he's way past fed up with her insanity. Some days he finds himself wishing that she wouldn't come back. Of course he'd be devastated if anything happened to her, it's not like he wants her dead or anything, but if she just... didn't come back to the apartment?

That'd be all right by him. Any affection he had for her has long since vanished. Cronus sometimes spend the afternoons that she's gone fantasizing. Being totally honest, most of these fantasies involve Vriska and Pyrope in various states of undress, sometimes inviting him in but sometimes not. Just because the fire's died doesn't mean Vriska's any less smoking and Pyrope's a fox.

He wonders if she's into guys.

 

 

 

This time she's gone overnight again, the first time since the initial night spent stargazing, and this breaks something open in him. She's taken off for the day more and more often in the last couple of months and that's fine because she's always home at night but not this time. Cronus paces the apartment, his reflection in the window looking like a caged animal. Like a tiger. He stops and practices the snarl. Maybe the band was right, maybe a harder edge was what he needed.

He sees her bike pull up and moves to get by the door but she bursts in like she stole that bike. He growls and narrows his eyes at her, knowing just how effective it look. “Where have you been,” he says, his voice low and dangerous.

“Cheating on you,” Vriska replies flippantly, strolling into the bedroom. He follows her. She's got a lot of nerve, walking in here like she owns the place, but that news was like a bat to the stomach.

“What?”

“Cheating on you,” Vriska repeats. “Did you not hear me?” As the initial shock starts to fade, Cronus notices a dawning sense of liberation. He sees her reach under the bed and haul out a duffel bag—the same one he moved in with—then stand again. “And leaving you, because you're an abusive asshole and I'm fed up with your bullshit, so goodbye. I'll pick up the rest of my stuff later.”

Vriska slings the bag on her back and he feels his jaw drop. She's leaving. He doesn't make a move to stop her, doesn't really know how to process the simultaneous emptiness and what he thinks has to be a kind of lightness. It's over.

As the door closes, he tells himself it feels good to be free.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is also spoken by Iago in Othello and refers to making an unworthy exchange, with particular connotations of exchanging a man (head) for a woman (tail). I think Vriska definitely traded up.


End file.
